Office Dynamics recently held its Annual Conference for Administrative Excellence in Las Vegas. It was our 23rd year and our biggest event. I was really curious as to how our attendees came to choose the Office Dynamics conference over other conferences for assistants.

The options we gave them were:

Joan Burge/Office Dynamics’ reputation

Topics

Speakers

Location/Las Vegas

Recommended by peer

Previous Attendee/Good experience

50% of our attendees responded. I was pleasantly surprised to see high percentages because of our reputation and recommended by a peer. I was really surprised to see that speakers were the lowest in votes; in fact very low. This really got me thinking . . . why? I mean I love that assistants choose our event because of our reputation; I just thought speakers would be really important.

At Office Dynamics, we take great care in hand-selecting our speakers. We want our speakers to be amazing presenters, engage our audience, and present a topic that is relevant to our conference theme for that particular year. We spend hours and hours seeking and enlisting the best speakers possible.

Now I’m wondering how much speakers matter to attendees.

For me, personally, when I am deciding whether or not to attend a conference in my industry, I always read about the speakers. Although the title of the presentation is high on my list as to why I choose a conference, I want to make sure that the topics being presented are in line with what I need for my development. Or maybe the topics expand on something I know but need to go deeper on it.

Then I like to read about the presenter because I want to know how qualified they are to speak on that particular subject.

What draws you to a particular administrative conference that you have not attended in the past or why do you choose one administrative conference over another administrative training event or conference? Is it the . . .

Hosting organization’s reputation?

Topics?

Speakers?

Venue—meaning hotel?

City?

Your peers highly recommend the event?

Extra-curricular activities?

I would love to read your comments on what’s important to you. We will be giving away access to one Be BOLD! Master Leadership One Bold Step At A Time – Conference On Demand. One lucky winner will be randomly selected. Good luck!

In 2014 we rolled out a scholarship program for the Annual Conference for Administrative Excellence. We’ve never offered a scholarship for our administrative conference in its history – now hosting our 23rd year.

We were thrilled with the quality of applications received and that the scholarship winners continued their relationship with Office Dynamics International after their experience with our event. We planned to continue to offer the program. Our 2015 event sold out before we could even launch our scholarship program!

We approached the scholarship program a little earlier this year and received twice as many applications than we did in our first year. Again, we were impressed with the quality of many of the applications that we received. It was a hard selection process but after each of our team members rated the applications and came together to add up the scores three winners quickly rose to the top.

We offered three scholarships for the Annual Conference for Administrative Excellence.

One full scholarship (event registration only) and two partial scholarships at $1,000 each (full registration is $1,495). [Read more…]

“I’ve lost my mojo and fear speaking up when I should,” confessed Janet who recently stepped into a new position. She’s not alone – I hear this theme often whether delivering programs to attorneys or administrators. Too many individuals avoid necessary, yet uncomfortable conversations. Just like any fear, the more we avoid it, the larger it looms. That’s why I’m offering these seven strategies to help you speak up and speak your truth the next time you feel that your voice needs to be heard: [Read more…]

One full tuition ($1495 value!) and two partial tuition scholarships ($1000 value!) will be awarded — but time is short! I urge you to take advantage of this administrative conference scholarship application if budget was a primary reason why you aren’t able to attend an administrative conference this year.

To be considered, complete the applicationtelling us why this event will benefit your career and increase the value you can provide to your organization, and include one brief professional recommendation.

The deadline to submit your scholarship application for the 21st Annual Conference for Administrative Excellence is August 20th, so do not wait!

Winners will be selected on a merit basis and will be notified August 25th. Scholarship winners are still responsible for their own travel, hotel and incidental costs.

Here at Office Dynamics International, we are fully committed to advancing the careers of administrative professionals. This is the first time we have ever offered a merit scholarship process, and our hope is to make this training accessible to passionate administrative assistants and executive assistants like yourself who can benefit the most from this exclusive gathering. We’ve taken steps to make applying easy — you can view the application here by clicking the Apply Now Button below.

I look forward to reviewing your application soon. Please don’t let the deadline slip by, as we want to do everything possible to see you at the conference this September in Las Vegas!

Did you know that teamwork and collaboration are different? They are both very necessary skill sets but many don’t understand the difference between the two. In fact, collaboration is quickly becoming a required competency of administrative professionals. Joan shares more on the difference in this video.

We’re seeing this interesting comparison more and more! When Julie Perrine shared a related article earlier this week we thought you would love to learn more about the distinction between teamwork and collaboration. Especially because this explanation gets a lot deeper on the comparison and distinction between these two skills. Learn why collaboration is being dubbed a “super skill” and even how Thomas Edison used collaboration. We’ve learned a lot from this interesting Podcast and think you will too at LifeofDad.com.